CEOs find three key barriers to involving themselves in the employee engagement process, research from Engage for Success reveals.
According to the small but detailed Engagement through CEO eyes study, CEOs believed themselves to either lack the capabilities of leadership required, be personally ill equipped for the task, or recognised that the culture and system in which their business operated was not supportive of employee engagement.
However, perhaps encouragingly, the survey of 16 CEOs found little evidence to support two original hypotheses: that there was a "lack of belief in engagement"; and that "leaders did not know what they did not know".
Presenting the results, Bain Capital operating partner and former chief HR officer at Thomson Reuters Stephen Dando said: "The CEO group struggled with how to define engagement.
"The nature of organisations and leadership is changing at an accelerating rate. Engagement appears to be the most challenging part of the leadership job."
Ashridge Business School research fellow and report author Amy Armstrong explained that it was critical that there were effective and engaged leaders.
And she noted that the barriers and issues raised were common throughout the interviews.
The research concluded that CEOs saw engagement as encompassing dialogue and strategic narrative within their organisation which, they believed, created emotional connection and purpose among employees.
It added that the outcome of engagement was seen as an organisational climate where people chose to give the very best of themselves at work.
